By Haidan Gong, Minge Gao, Yiwei Guo, Jian Wang; Wuxi Suntech Power Co., Ltd. Xiaogang Zhu, Jiayan Lu, Shan Yanyan & Yi Liu; National Center of Supervision & Inspection on Solar Photovoltaic Products Quality (CPVT), Wuxi, Jiangsu, China
Because it leads to higher efficiencies than aluminium back-surface field (Al-BSF) cells, passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) technology is attracting more and more attention in the industry and gaining market share. However, PERC technology brings new challenges with regard to the phenomenon of degradation: some monofacial/bifacial PERC cell modules were found to demonstrate much higher power degradation than Al-BSF cell modules after damp-heat (DH: 85°C and 85% relative humidity RH, 1000h) and potential-induced degradation (PID: 85°C and 85% RH, –1,500V, 96h) tests, which will be the focus of this paper.
